New Delhi, August 10 2011The Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), Department of Telecommunications, Government of India, has awarded certificate of successful completion of project to Vihaan Networks Limited (VNL), an Indian manufacturer of telecommunications infrastructure equipment, establishing benefits of its new technological development of GSM Cellular Rural Telephony Solution to address the challenges of the rural telecom sector. The certificate was presented to VNL by the Administrator USOF Mr. Ajay Bhattacharya, who expressed his happiness on the successful completion of the project.

The USOF has found VNL’s WorldGSM™ solution to be: environmentally-friendly and suitable for deployment in Rural and Remote villages; industrial areas with low capacity requirement; and isolated areas which have limited or no grid power and poor infrastructure.

VNL had entered into a MoU with the USOF in September 2009, and has successfully completed the Pilot Project for demonstration of the capabilities of its Rural Mobile GSM Solution in Alwar District of Rajasthan, India, in association with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL).

According to the USOF, the VNL system successfully demonstrated the following salient features:

The USO certificate was awarded following a year long deployment of VNL’s solar-powered, zero OPEX GSM system developed specifically for remote rural areas where there is little or no electricity and ARPUs are less than $2-3 a month.

VNL’s zero opex network solution was used to provide mobile services to around 30 villages in Alwar District, Rajasthan, across an area of 200 square kilometers, not covered by BSNL’s existing network. It was tested by a team comprising officers of the Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC), Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DoT) and USOF.

Rajiv Mehrotra, Chairman & CEO of VNL said, “As an Indian company involved in innovation and manufacturing of high tech telecom infrastructure solutions, we are proud to receive this Certificate from USO. VNL is on a mission to connect the unconnected using sustainable models and we are delighted with the results in Rajasthan. We are grateful to the Government of India, USOF and BSNL, for encouraging us to demonstrate the capabilities of our rural GSM and broadband solution”.

VNL’s pioneering work has been widely praised; In 2010, it was named as a Technology Pioneer by The World Economic Forum (www.weforum.org) and the third most innovative company – and the most innovative telecoms company – in the world in the Wall Street Journal’s annual Technology Innovation Awards, 2009. VNL was selected as a 2009 Top Pick and named as a company to watch in the wireless infrastructure market by Light Reading, a specialist telecoms analyst and publishing house. VNL also won the “best technology foresight” category at the World Communications Awards and came second in the “Green Network Hardware and Infrastructure” category at the CTIA Wireless E-Tech Awards.

VNL equipment is also deployed in networks in South Asia, Africa, Central and South America.

About VNL (www.vnl.in)
For years, operators and GSM equipment vendors have struggled with the same problem: Traditional telecom equipment is not designed for the unique challenges posed by remote rural areas. It costs too much, is too expensive to run, uses too much power and is too difficult to deploy (especially in areas with no electricity, poor roads and a lack of trained engineers).

VNL has spent the last six years re-engineering GSM to overcome these challenges. The result is WorldGSMTM – the world’s first truly environmentally sustainable voice and data network.

Highlights:

Zero Opex – made possible by major reductions in power consumption; allowing for the use of solar power as the single energy source. No diesel generators are required.

Low Capex – priced at less than traditional GSM base stations -so that it’s profitable even at very low population densities and ARPU levels.

Rural-Optimised and easy to transport – compact and rugged; can even be transported on bullock carts.

Self-Deploying and near-zero maintenance – a village base station can be installed in hours by unskilled persons